A City Empties As Rising River Stakes Its Claim

Published: April 20, 1997

GRAND FORKS, N.D., April 19—
Most of the 50,000 residents abandoned this city today as the rising Red River overran miles of hastily built sandbag dikes and sent cold, dirty water washing through their neighborhoods.

But some were reluctant to leave, and police and National Guard officials went door to door today to get people out of flooded neighborhoods, threatening arrest for those who refused to obey the evacuation order. In neighboring East Grand Forks, Minn., officials were also trying to get holdouts to leave.

The Grand Forks Mayor, Pat Owens, said people might be gone for as long as two weeks because it would take that long to fix the city's flooded water plant.

''Lack of services is going to make life difficult and perhaps dangerous for residents throughout the city, even those who are not inundated by water,'' the Mayor said.

One of those evacuated, Joann Hurley, 72, left her home on a National Guard truck at 4 A.M. today. ''This is frightening,'' she said. ''None of us believed this could happen.''

She regretted ''just walking out and leaving all your treasures.''

Officials said 60 percent of Grand Forks, a city of 10 1/2 square miles, was covered with water. Police Lieut. Byron Sieber said he expected most of the city to be flooded.

''We kind of laid out grids on the city as what we see as particular neighborhoods, and we're seeing those go down one by one,'' Lieutenant Sieber said. ''There are a few high areas, but they're rare.''

President Clinton promised in a statement today that Federal agencies would help with the flood and its aftermath. He had previously declared North Dakota a disaster area.

The Grand Forks Air Force Base 10 miles west of town was prepared to accept as many as 5,000 refugees. Among them was Brenda Pauley-Colter, who was drained by days of battling the inhospitable Red River and for whom even a green military cot in a cavernous military hangar looked inviting.

''They're actually not too bad,'' she said today. ''I'm so tired, I can sleep on anything.''

Other shelters were being readied at three eastern North Dakota colleges; the closest is 35 miles south. Long lines of fleeing traffic headed west out of the city.

One Grand Forks resident, Karen Watt, had time to pack only two small suitcases with a change of clothes and food for her dog, Otis, before she was evacuated shortly after 8 A.M. today.

''Our lives are more important than furniture,'' she said as she sat at Red River High School, waiting to be sent on to another shelter.

Nearby, Arlen Boulduc sipped coffee as he kept watch over his six children, 3 to 19 years old.

''I don't think there's many people here who have been through this.'' Mr. Boulduc said.

On the opposite side of the river, residents of part of East Grand Forks were also evacuated today after an 8-foot dike burst. The break left an estimated 3,000 East Grand Forks residents with no way to get over a bridge into the rest of the city, said Lynn Stauss, Mayor of the town, which has 8,500 people.

''We've been having National Guard going in and out by helicopter or by boat and evacuating these people,'' the Mayor said.

The Red River stood at about 53 feet at midday today. The National Weather Service said the river would rise another foot, slowly over the next few days. Flood stage is 28 feet.

In Grand Forks, floodwaters were so deep that firefighters could not get to two downtown buildings when fires broken out. Instead, officials evacuated the area and sent in planes dropping chemicals on the blaze. Twenty people in one building were rescued and there were no reports of injuries.

The flooding also knocked out power to the Grand Forks police department, including its radio communications. Officer Joann Chaput said the city's 65 police officers had to rely on cellular phones.

The river's rise negated weeks of backbreaking work. Dikes built of clay and sandbags, in anticipation of the melting of the record winter snowfall that also flooded other wide areas of Minnesota and North Dakota, were washed away in hours.

In Fargo, 75 miles to the south, workers finished an earthen dike across the city's southern half, cutting off more than 300 homes, including a condominium owned by Gov. Ed Schafer.

''We're on the wrong side of the dike,'' Governor Schafer said today from Grand Forks, where he was helping to supervise emergency efforts.

Mayor Bruce Furness of Fargo said the the dike had been built protect the rest of the city from the advancing water.

More than 300 North Dakota National Guardsmen were on call to help with the flood emergency, along with thousands of airmen at the Grand Forks Air Force Base. ''Literally, we've got the whole base at our disposal,'' said Maj. Gen. Keith Bjerke, commander of the North Dakota guard.

Kevin Pulst, who was leaving with his wife, Lisa, and two sons, said, ''I think the worst part for us is, we don't know how high it's going to go.'' Mrs. Pulst said that when it was all over, ''I'm building a house on top of a hill in a desert.''

The University of North Dakota, the state's largest college, canceled the three weeks left in the spring semester. Two sophomores there, Amber Fuglesten and Tori Impola, were leaving for their parents' homes in Detroit Lakes, Minn.

''Got pretty much everything here,'' Ms. Impola said, gesturing to her compact car, where most of the seat space was taken up by a basket of laundry. ''Don't know how long we'll be gone.''